Protest Nation: The Rage of the 99 Percenters

“These cycles of tragedy were rooted in an intergenerational sequence of sadness, all ruinous illustrations of the Information Age's termination of the American Dream. The lowest rung was unhappy with their situation in life because the tracks laid previously would not take them to a better future, and the billionaires were on Instagram bragging about private jets. In the six months since the pandemic spread to America's shores, the absence of in-person relationships and economic prospects were filled by the most immediate family in the digital world - political tribes”. – Riot Diet

Thomas Jefferson once said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”, noting how self-rule would be a constant struggle.  This is the one area that modern Americans would not disappoint their Founders. 

In Richie McGinniss’s 2024 book, “Riot Diet,” McGinniss provides a chronicle of American dissent and civil unrest, beginning with the 2020 George Floyd protests in Minneapolis that quickly spread across the country.  Through personal anecdotes from a man-on-the-ground perspective, McGinniss provides video evidence of the backlash by first revealing the individuals behind the protests. 

Like the Gilded Age of the 1920s, the new millennium brought about another façade of economic progress for those at the top, while the masses struggled to keep up.   

Disillusioned with a seemingly broken system, the unemployed, the underemployed, and the debt-ridden activists of the new age, whether the black bloc of Antifa or the newly minted BLM, capitalized on chaos.   With a narrative of racial division, mostly disaffected youth focused their ire on the police as a reason for their discontent.   Looking to tear down the system of their parents, lawlessness and violence became the preferred vehicle.   

By imposing autonomous zones of their own, they hoped to install their own utopian plan of self-rule, an experiment in social disorder, accentuated with calls to defund the police. 

Driven largely by the death of neutral reporting, dueling narratives between right and left-wing media, neither of which was telling the full story, only added fuel to the fire.  Using exaggerations to heighten fears, whether a fiery protest or one that was mostly peaceful, disinformation only served to further segregate society.  The divisions were many.  From the growing chasm between the establishment vs. the anti-establishment, flyover country vs. coastal elite, or Antifa vs. MAGA, who actually represented the counterculture was often difficult to assess. 

For McGinnis and other small-time independent media outlets, an opportunity presented itself.  With camera phones and little else, a truer picture was delivered to the masses—a narrative-free reality they could see with their own eyes.  

Concerns over the growing divide between the 1 percent and the 99 percent meant addressing the elephant in the room: an inequality of opportunity.   A rising tide must lift all boats, or the system fails. 

The most dangerous people in the world are those who have nothing to lose.  In their desperation, they will continue to be driven to the streets to express their rage.  As the stakes increase, they will only become more violent.